Another cracking hot day had the whole hotel up early for a Sunday morning breakfast in the garden. Our plan originally was to head back to the coast today Marseilles, St Tropez, perhaps even Grasse. The more we're here to more we're wanting to soak up the sandy taupe vistas of Provence.
Addicted to the Provence markets, we were searching for one again in a little town nearby today. Not knowing exactly where it was meant we were exploring a tiny hillside town (Rochefort du Gard) on a sleepy Sunday morning with no luck at all. We found an 800 year old church on one mountain top, and across to the next peak, an Abbey founded by Charlemagne in 768. Both had beautiful vistas out over the grape fields of the region, but we couldn't see the markets from either vantage point. Having spent half an hour looking for the markets we gave up we headed for our next stop - Pont du Gard.
Of course on the way out of town we drove straight by the local markets! Baguette & soft cheese in hand, we continued on our way to Pont du Gard. Built by the Romans 3-4 thousand years ago, Gab and I did our best to explain what an aqueduct was and why the Romans went to such effort to build them. This magnificent parkland is a local favourite, we saw our third wedding today - but Boo reassured us all that "none are as special as Rob & Evie's".
From Pont du Gard we headed for the kids highlight of the day, the local Haribo factory which has added a Museum, shop and play area. The kids were made up for the next few hours. The coolest thing I saw was a mural of JFK made from Golden bears, for Gab it might have been the massive Golden Bears in the boutique, for Fid it was all the games centred around the factory operations - forklift driving, syrup mixing and mould forging - for Boo there was no contest - the boutique with massive multi-kilo bags of every product ready for you to purchase. The stress of deciding was nearly too much with the store threatening to close for siesta time before she made a choice. At the end of the museum tour was some example packaging machinery - you could order up your own packaged goodies from, it was very Wonkeresque. Having downed a few handfuls of car trip napalm, the Musee had thoughtfully included a big play ground attached to the car park. Fid went wire walking while Boo took to the trapeze - the next half an hour prove it wasn't enough.
The Lavender fields were our last Provence target for the day, we pulled stopped at a boulangerie in one of the villages along the way - Croque Monsieur and Cafe Eclair is becoming am ingrained if not too healthy pattern this week. Our final stop was the Abbey near Gordes. This areas is beautiful both for the lavender blooms and the hill top village of Gordes basking in the afternoon sun. We were too late in the season to see the main field all alight in Lavender, but the scenery was magnificent none the less.
Later back in Avignon we had dinner in the Place du l'Hourlage. The kids made friends with a girl from New York and rode the carousel with her while their parents compared backstories. In a blink it was 10:30 and the sun was just starting to fade, tomorrow is early start for our longest and final planned driving day all the way to Paris, so tp bed it was.